


a moment’s silence

by weisenbachfelded



Series: as you’ve always been au [2]
Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: ...or is it, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Unrequited Love, ayab nation i’m back!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:13:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28343703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weisenbachfelded/pseuds/weisenbachfelded
Summary: In the liminal sort of space and time between his and Jack’s parting, and their meeting again on the plane, Davey thought often of the single moment of hope that he had been permitted.Perhaps to call it a moment was wrong.No, it was a series of moments, of motions, of words, of looks, that perhaps meant very little on their own, but that had each added their own shine to form a near-complete glimmer of hope.
Relationships: David Jacobs/Jack Kelly
Series: as you’ve always been au [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2075670
Comments: 10
Kudos: 33





	a moment’s silence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PenzyRome](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenzyRome/gifts).



> my dearest penzy gave me the excuse to revisit the ayab universe for her xmas gift! and boy did i go overboard with it!  
> this is set in between jack and davey starting their friends-with-benefits thing and davey leaving to go to his editors  
> penzy is the most incredible writer who i have looked up to since long before i started writing and you must go and read all of her writing (penzyrome on here!!) i don’t make the rules  
> penzy! i hope this is everything you hoped i adore you and i am forever and always grateful that the universe gave me the chance to know you. i love u!

In the liminal sort of space and time between his and Jack’s parting, and their meeting again on the plane, Davey thought often of the single moment of hope that he had been permitted. 

Perhaps to call it a moment was wrong. 

No, it was a series of moments, of motions, of words, of looks, that perhaps meant very little on their own, but that had each added their own shine to form a near-complete glimmer of hope. 

*

It was a week before Jack’s first big solo art exhibition, at a small gallery in some arty part of town, and though he protested up and down that it wasn’t, Davey knew just from a glance at the guest list that it was kind of a big deal. 

In the larger scheme of things, and with the searing insight so graciously provided by retrospect, it was four months before Davey would up and leave for his publishers in Maine. 

In other words, they were still - still whatever they were. Hooking up. Friends with benefits. Messing around. Davey turned each phrase, each description over and over in his mind as he lay awake in bed in the early hours of the morning. None seemed quite suitable, none seemed to fit exactly what it was that he and Jack were, what it was that they were doing. 

It was odd, this predicament, if for only one reason then for the fact that Davey knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he could not put any of his wonderings into words. That was his job, after all; words were his job. He did, he supposed, in some respects, pour all of his confusion and worry and hollow aching into the words that he wrote, but he found it deeply unsatisfying, and was left forever craving the chance to spell out what he wanted to ask in the simplest of words. 

_What are we? What are we doing? What is our past, our present - god forbid, what is our future?_

But he knew that he could not, for as deep as his wanting for answers ran within him, he knew uncertainty and fear ran deeper within Jack. It was that uncertainty and fear that Davey felt beneath his mouth, beneath his fingertips ever time they kissed. It was that uncertainty and fear that kept six inches of space between them on the couch at home, that stopped him from kissing Jack goodbye when he left for work in the mornings, that prevented him from pressing his lips to Jack’s temple while he painted in the sitting room. 

His first inkling of what he might one day call hope came, then, as a complete and utter shock to his system - and also to _their_ system, to this set of rules they had established without ever having said a word. 

It was a Friday night, Davey was certain of that, because he didn’t think he’d ever forget the aching tiredness in his bones, nor the uncomfortable jitters he had from a long week of doing little but sitting at home, alone, typing and typing and typing, interspersed with the occasional  
video conference with editors and publishers and marketing people. The moment his editor wished him a good weekend, he had slammed his laptop shut and all but thrown it into his bedroom, tumbling into the kitchen to find his old book of recipes. 

He leant back against the counter and leafed through, finally landing on a cutout from a magazine, a recipe for a spicy vegetable noodle dish he’d been longing to try for months, but had never had the time for. Now was a time as good as any, he supposed. He took his phone from his pocket and hooked it up to the little speaker they kept in the kitchen, fired off a quick text to Jack asking him to buy some bell peppers on his way home, and put on _Speak Now_ with the volume turned up way too high. 

He vaguely heard the door slam shut over the noise of the music and the sizzling of the pan, vaguely heard Jack call something unintelligible. He ignored it, steady in the knowledge that Jack would fall into the kitchen in the next thirty seconds, and try to steal some noodles, burning his tongue in the process. 

As he had predicted, Jack slid into the kitchen in his socks and placed the bell peppers beside Davey on the kitchen counter, then grabbed a noodle and dropped it into his mouth. 

Jack gasped the moment he did, and Davey just laughed. 

‘Careful,’ he said, ‘it’s hot.’

‘Hilarious,’ Jack deadpanned, and poured himself a glass of water, which he downed in one. 

They were silent for a moment, but for the hissing of the pan and the music, with the volume turned down low. Davey allowed himself a brief glance sideways, only to see Jack already looking. 

‘Do I have food on my face?’ Davey asked, his hand moving automatically to brush over his mouth and check. 

Jack laughed. ‘No,’ he said, ‘you’re good.’ 

‘Why are you staring at me, then?’ 

‘Do I need an excuse to look at you?’

Davey felt his breath catch briefly in his throat. ‘I guess not.’ 

The silence that followed was not exactly uncomfortable - more heavy, suddenly weighed down. Davey wondered if Jack felt it, too. 

‘Good day?’ Davey asked, suddenly desperate to cut through the weight of the air. 

Jack made a face. ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘Work was super busy and I keep getting calls from people about the opening next week. I think it’s starting to piss Spot off that I disappear into the back room to answer a call every five minutes.’ 

‘Well,’ Davey said, dicing peppers and brushing them into the pan with the side of his knife, ‘I just got to the end of that episode at the end of season five, right before - what’s that one you like? The episode where Sookie’s pregnant and Luke’s in charge of the kitchen?’ 

Jack let out a triumphant laugh. ‘ _But I’m a Gilmore!_ ’ he said with a grin. ‘The one episode that proves Logan and Rory are meant to be. I knew you’d come around eventually.’ Jack laughed again, and began taking cutlery out of the drawers. 

‘You’re so full of shit,’ Davey said, fondly. ‘I concede you a whole Logan episode and this is the thanks I get?’ 

‘You know I’m right,’ Jack replied, as he carried a precarious pile of forks and glasses into the sitting room. 

‘You’re not!’ Davey called after him, but Jack ignored him. 

Davey shook his head, and added one more dash of sauce to the pan. He hummed quietly along to the last chorus of _Enchanted_ , then turned off the music, and carried both bowls into the sitting room.

Jack was curled up beneath a blanket on the couch in the sitting room, his head resting on his arms as though it was too much for him to hold it up by himself. Davey sang along to the opening titles of _Gilmore Girls_ , which made Jack smile as he took his bowl of noodles. 

‘I like it when you sing,’ Jack said, quietly, and then he began to eat. Davey opened his mouth to respond, but Jack frowned at him and pressed a finger to his lips, motioning for him to be quiet. Davey stared at him for a moment, and then turned to watch the TV. 

They ate in silence, Jack glued to the TV and Davey not so much, but rather taking the opportunity to steal glances at Jack. He revelled in these moments until it made him exhausted from the guilt of it, in Jack’s small smiles, in his sharp exhales of breath when he laughed, in the smudge of sauce on his upper lip, in the gradual disappearance of the soft frown lines on his forehead. 

He was jolted from the midst of one such glance when Jack leaned over to place his now-empty bowl on the coffee table in front of them. Davey did the same with his empty bowl, and then tucked his feet up beneath him and wrapped his arms around himself, more out of security than out of his feeling the cold. 

‘Cold?’ Jack asked, and his voice was quiet, as if tired and content. 

‘Mm,’ Davey hummed, by way of a response. 

‘C’mere,’ Jack mumbled, and lifted his blanket up at the side. He made no move to shift himself, or to give Davey any of the blanket. Davey blinked at him, once, twice. Jack really was suggesting what he thought. Cautiously - for Davey feared that he was misinterpreting this entire thing - he shifted over so that he, too, was beneath the blanket, so close to Jack that he had to hold his breath to stop their sides from touching. 

There was no need, it turned out, for such a thing, because Jack set the blanket back down so that it covered Davey’s lap, and then moved himself so as to ever so gently place his head on Davey’s shoulder. 

Davey froze, his breath still caught in the back of his throat. 

Perhaps it was overly dramatic of him to think so, but this felt an awful lot like breaching the set of unspoken rules between them. It felt too much like affection, like something outside of the strictly platonic boundaries they had set, and that Davey adhered to for his unshakeable fear that he would unintentionally push Jack just a millimetre too far. 

He expected Jack to move away, perhaps to spread out the blanket so that Davey would take the hint to move out of his personal space. But he did no such thing - rather, he squeezed Davey’s knee very gently, and turned his head a little to look up at him. 

‘Don’t think so much,’ Jack said. A yawn caught him off-guard, and the hand that had been resting on Davey’s knee flew instinctively up to cover his mouth. Davey looked very determinedly at the TV, and worked as hard as he could to slowly release the tension in every one of his muscles, until he could just about relax into Jack’s side. 

Jack felt warm, Davey thought; he felt warm and safe and familiar. It was moments like these that made him feel so much like the Jack that he had always known, the Jack that had always been so kind, so gentle, so soft around the edges. The Jack who had yet to kiss him in the kitchen, who painted sets, and stood in the wings and clapped, who skipped class with him to sit on the fire escape. The Jack who had a cut along the right side of his jaw from shaving, who was still all curves and gentle edges in the face - though Davey did not know it, because that was the Jack whose face he had never held in his hands, whose lips he did not yet know the taste of. 

In the lull of a scene with little dialogue, Jack turned his head again, so that he was still resting on Davey’s shoulder, but could look up at him at the same time. 

‘Do you think it’s okay that I’m scared?’ he asked, quietly. His voice was a little husky, still sleepy, but now affected in that way that his voice always became when he hadn’t spoken in a little while. 

Davey turned his head a little as well, so as to be able to look down at Jack. When he did so, their faces were a little closer together than he had anticipated, and the sight of the tired fear in Jack’s eyes left him feeling quite breathless. 

‘Why wouldn’t it be?’ Davey asked. 

That made Jack laugh a little, for some reason. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It feels like I should be more… more ready than I am.’ 

‘You keep thinking like that and you’ll never feel ready, Jackie,’ Davey replied. 

Jack sighed. ‘I know, I know.’

‘You are ready, though,’ Davey added, ‘just in case you needed to hear it for the thousandth time.’ 

‘I always need to hear it, Davey,’ Jack said, ‘especially from you.’ 

With that, he turned back to the TV, pressed himself briefly a little closer back into Davey’s side, and clicked the button on the TV remote to skip the end credits of the episode. 

*

The second in the series of moments - or, at least, the one that managed to nestle itself neatly and irrevocably into Davey’s memory - was of three days later, and four days until the exhibition opening. 

It was Davey’s turn, on that Monday night, to trudge home from a day of classes to Jack, to stop off at the store to buy eggs and bagels, to ride the clunky elevator up to their apartment on his own. 

He all but fell into the hallway when he unlocked the door, hardly finding the energy to shrug his jacket off his shoulders and hang it on a hook next to Jack’s. There was music coming from behind the closed door of the sitting room - a steady, thudding bass indicating that Jack had mostly likely taken the opportunity of Davey’s absence to turn one of his _Lo-Fi Beats to Study To_ playlists up to full volume.

Davey pushed the door open a little, and then all the way when Jack didn’t notice him. 

Jack was sat cross-legged on his chair, a paintbrush tucked behind one ear, and a pencil behind the other, as he painted the skeleton of a new project onto a canvas. Strokes of grey formed the very basics of the shapes that he was yet to turn into another of his masterpieces, and there were two strokes of blue, fairly close together, just off-centre. The paintbrush behind his left ear had the traces of blue paint on the end, and the back of his hand was covered in swatches of different shades of blue, like he had spent many hours trying over and over to find exactly the right colour for those two strokes of blue on the canvas - though what exactly they were, Davey didn’t know. 

He knew that Jack wouldn’t hear him if he asked anything, so he went to the speaker sat on the mantelpiece, and turned the volume down. Jack turned around at that, and his face broke into a tired smile. 

‘Hey, Davey!’ he said, and though he tried to sound cheerful, the cracks in his voice betrayed something else. 

‘Hey, Jackie,’ Davey replied, and held up the bag in his hand. ‘I got bagels like you asked. Want one?’ Jack smiled, and nodded.

Davey turned the music up a few notches - though not quite back up to the same level as it had been before - and made his way to the kitchen. As he passed Jack, he instinctively reached out a hand. To squeeze his shoulder, brush against his upper arm, perhaps; he wasn’t quite sure. He withdrew it as quickly as he had reached it out. 

Once in the kitchen, he listened intently to the near-drowned-out clattering of Jack putting his painting things away. Davey took the bagels from his shopping bag, and took a knife, the peanut butter, and a banana from various cupboards. He sliced the bagel in half, toasted it, then cut the banana into slices, spread both halves of the bagel with peanut butter, and arranged the banana slices on top of the peanut butter. He spent a good few minutes searching for Jack’s favourite plate, the one with a giraffe in the centre, and acacia leaves going all the way around the edge. The plate was, for some reason, in the cupboard above the sink, where they kept the mugs. 

Davey went back into the sitting room balancing the plate and a mug of tea. Jack had turned off the music, and was sitting with his head in his hands on the couch. 

Davey set the plate and the mug down in front of Jack on the table, and then crouched down next to him. He placed a gentle hand on Jack’s knee, and moved his thumb in absent-minded circles. 

‘I’m so scared, Davey,’ Jack said into his hands. ‘I’m not ready for this and when they see the exhibition everyone’s gonna know it.’ 

Davey didn’t reply. Instead, he lifted a hand to where Jack’s were still covering his face, and, in a gesture far too intimate, he tugged gently at his fingers, pulling them down and away from his face. Jack’s hands fell, limp, into his lap. 

‘I’ve been painting all day,’ he said, and gestured towards the easel with the hand covered in paint swatches, ‘and none of it’s any good. What if - what if everything that’s going up on Friday’s no good as well?’ 

‘You know very well that’s not true,’ Davey replied, rather sternly. ‘You’re panicking, Jackie. It’s all okay. It’s more than okay.’ 

Jack sighed, and laughed bitterly. ‘I’m so scared,’ he repeated. 

‘I know,’ Davey replied, softly. Jack stood, suddenly, and so Davey did too, letting his hands fall to his sides. Jack looked around him, a little nervously, as though he was trying to figure out what it was that he needed to do to try and distract his mind. His gaze fell upon Davey, where it rested for a moment. It took everything Davey had in him not to lean ever so slightly forwards. 

With little warning, Jack took one fumbling step towards Davey, and wrapped his arms around him. Davey responded without a second thought, holding Jack close to him. Jack’s head fit just beneath his chin. He felt soft and sturdy to Davey, warm and solid and permanent, and yet he shook, just a little, as he cried into Davey’s shoulder. 

Davey was unsure how long they stood there, wrapped around each other in the heavy silence of the sitting room, but he was certain that he had no intention nor wanting to move. It was Jack who made the motion to think about breaking apart, his body ceasing to shake, shifting a little where he stood. 

Very gently - so much so that Davey could easily have imagined it - Jack pressed his mouth to the space where Davey’s neck met his shoulder in a shy sort of kiss, against the soft skin revealed by the neckline of his shirt. Davey felt himself exhale softly, almost betraying his surprise and deep, aching longing. 

Jack went suddenly quite tense, as if he had landed back within himself. He lifted his head, turning it away from Davey, and used the sleeve of his shirt to wipe at his eyes quickly and carelessly, and then stepped back, and out of Davey’s space. 

‘’M sorry about that,’ he mumbled. ‘Just scared. Upset. Panicking.’ 

‘Nothing to apologise for,’ Davey said, and his voice came out a little quieter, a little less clear than he had intended. 

‘I’ll, uh - I’ll do this,’ Jack said, and gestured at the mess still taking up the sitting room. ‘Thanks for my bagel.’ 

‘Go on. Sit down and eat your bagel,’ Davey said, with a dismissive wave of his hand. ‘I’ll clear the rest of this up.’

*

It had become a sort of tradition, before big events - such as Jack’s exhibition opening - for Davey to sit in Jack’s room, cross-legged on the bed, already dressed, while Jack chose whatever it was he was going to wear. 

Davey had his phone in his hands, picking out songs to add to the quiet soundtrack as Jack leafed through his closet for the hundredth time. He had on already his nice pair of trousers - the ones he had worn to a few exhibitions before. 

‘Blue or white?’ Jack asked. Davey looked up at him, where he was stood holding up a shirt in each colour, both still on the hangers, chewing anxiously on his bottom lip. 

‘White, I think,’ Davey replied, nodding. ‘Keep it simple tonight.’ 

Jack smiled, and nodded a little more vigorously than was necessary in his nervousness. 

Davey tapped his fingers absently against his knee in rhythm with the music, as Jack drifted in and out of the room to put his shirt on, to brush his teeth, to find a matching pair of socks. Finally, he came to rest in front of his closet once more. His collar was upturned, with no tie around his neck yet. He raised his hands, as if to start looking through it once more, but paused, his hands hovering in mid-air. It would not have surprised Davey if he had begun murmuring an incantation, his hands held out as if filled to the brim with magic. 

Jack turned to look at Davey, and there was a softness in his gaze, alongside the clear worry. ‘Pick me a tie?’ he said, and his voice was strained, anxious, not quite as questioning as his words perhaps intended. Davey nodded - comfortingly, he hoped - and stood up, walking to stand at Jack’s side. He looked through the mess of Jack’s drawers, folding up crumpled clothes as he went. Jack did not move, as Davey had expected him to, but rather stayed stood next to him, their shoulders just barely brushing. 

Finally, Davey picked out a plain black tie with small planets patterned on it. 

‘I always feel like that one makes me look like a nerd,’ Jack said, with a crooked smile. 

‘You are a nerd,’ Davey replied, and looped the tie around Jack’s neck. He suddenly realised what he had done, and let his hands fall to his sides and took a step back, the tie falling flat against Jack’s chest. 

‘Sorry,’ Davey murmured, ‘wasn’t thinking.’ An odd part of him wasn’t quite sure what he was apologising for - but was fairly certain it wasn’t merely for the act of making the moves to tie Jack’s tie for him. 

‘’S’okay,’ Jack replied, and his voice was just as quiet as Davey’s, ‘my hands are shaking anyway. You can if you want.’ 

‘But do you want me to?’ 

Jack looked very much as though he hadn’t expected Davey to ask that. His eyes widened, almost imperceptibly, and he took a sharp little breath in. 

‘Yeah,’ he said finally, ‘I do.’ In an odd way, it seemed that he was expressing rather more than he was saying just in his words. 

‘Okay,’ Davey said, and it felt very easy, almost too easy, for him to step into Jack’s space, to pick up the ends of the tie again, to loop one end over the other, to tie the knot. Jack moved his hands up to do up his top button but, as he had said, they were shaking too badly for him to be able to. A part of Davey, very deep down, wondered if they were shaking solely from nerves about the exhibition. 

‘Let me,’ Davey said, and at his words, Jack let his hands fall easily to his sides. Davey tilted his head sideways as he took to Jack’s stiff top button. He put a little too much force into it, and ended up knocking Jack in the jaw as he finally got the button through the buttonhole. 

‘Sorry,’ he murmured again, and, without thinking, traced the spot on Jack’s jaw that he had knocked with a gentle brush of his fingertips. Perhaps he invented it, but he was almost certain that Jack leaned in to his touch, ever so slightly. 

He drew back just as quickly as he had leaned in, and picked up his suit jacket from where it lay over the back of a chair.

‘Got the keys?’ Jack asked, clearing his throat a little awkwardly. 

‘Got them,’ Davey replied, patting the pocket with the keys to the apartment in it. ‘Not coming home separately?’ 

Jack shook his head, and smiled in a weird kind of way. Davey might have called it wry, only he wasn’t sure that any word was quite right. 

*

Davey watched with a dogmatic kind of devotion as Jack spoke to countless people, shook hands, kissed cheeks, laughed at unfunny jokes. He knew he had people to talk to himself, paintings to look at again, friends to catch up with. He knew that he could leave any time he wanted. And yet, he had no desire to whatsoever, wanted only to stand and watch the scene before him unfold in an ebbing stream of people and noise. 

At a quarter to eleven, Davey looked at the clock. Jack was standing by the door, hugging Katherine and Sarah as they left. Both of them waved at Davey, where he was stood in the corner, and then wandered out, hand in hand. Davey watched the line at the exit dwindle as person after person offered their congratulations to Jack, clasped his hand, clapped him on the back. 

Finally, a middle-aged man squeezed his shoulder in a fatherly fashion, and handed him a small ring of keys, before turning his collar up against the wind and leaving. Jack leaned back against the wall, letting his head fall back. 

And then he laughed, a breathy kind of relieved exhale. Davey tried not to watch the line of his throat as he did so, tried to stay afloat in the sound of his laugh. 

‘Ready to go home?’ Davey asked, tentatively. 

Jack looked over at him, and then shook his head. ‘Not yet. I just want to - to stay here. For a moment. Go, if you want, though.’ 

‘No, I’ll stay. ’Course I’ll stay.’ 

That made Jack smile, for a reason Davey couldn’t quite place. Jack tucked the ring of keys in his pocket and walked over to where Davey was standing, in the centre of the room. They stood side by side for a moment, Jack staring at the paintings around him, and Davey staring unabashedly at Jack, for who was there to tell him that he shouldn’t? 

Without warning, Jack turned his head and looked at Davey. He didn’t seem surprised to find Davey’s eyes already on him. Instead, he tilted his head quizzically to one side. 

‘What are you thinking?’ Jack asked, quietly. 

‘I’m really proud of you,’ Davey replied, after barely a moment’s waiting. 

Jack smiled crookedly, and in the now-faint light, Davey could see him blushing, just a little. 

‘Shut up,’ he said, and shoved Davey gently. 

‘I mean it,’ Davey said, with a quiet laugh. ‘This is only the beginning, as well. Give it… I don’t know. Three years? Four? You’ll have exhibitions three times the size of this and people queueing ’round the block to see them.’ 

‘I don’t know about that,’ Jack said. ‘’Be nice, wouldn’t it?’ 

Davey just nodded. Jack had turned a little, so that he was closer to standing opposite to him, rather than next to him. Davey could feel his chest constricting, his breath catching painfully in the back of his throat. 

Very slowly, gently at first, but with an increasing surety, Jack leant forwards and pressed his mouth to Davey’s. And Davey, hopeless as he was, kissed him back. 

Davey had never felt Jack kiss him like this before. 

No, scratch that. 

Davey had never been kissed like this before. 

Actually, Davey was pretty certain that no human in history had ever been kissed like this before. 

The kiss was no less defined by fear and uncertainty than any of their preceding kisses had been, but there was a new kind of determination on Jack’s part that seemed to be pressing forwards, ever seeking, rather than drawing back. There was a trace of surety in Jack’s touch that Davey hadn’t ever felt before, and a new kind of wanting that felt freer of shame, of hesitation. 

Had it not seemed to him so utterly preposterous at the time, and for many years afterwards, Davey might have named this new intensity something akin to love. He had tentatively applied such a name to his own feelings a long time ago, and it made him wonder if that meant that when they kissed, Jack always felt what he was feeling now. 

But then Jack’s hands moved, and Davey was suddenly certain that this was new for the both of them. Both of Jack’s hands landed on Davey’s waist, firm and sure and warm and comforting, and it took everything in Davey not to burst into tears at the feeling. Instead, he tilted his head a little to the side, opened his mouth a little more, placed one hand on the back of Jack’s neck, and slipped one hand to the small of Jack’s back, pressing them flush together. Jack let out the tiniest gasp at that, his mouth going slack for just a split second before he kissed Davey with renewed fervour. 

It made Davey smile against Jack’s mouth to realise that with this newfound confidence came a release of skill. Jack’s tongue was doing things that he had never felt it do before, but that were evidently practiced and honed to a fine degree. He had let go of some of his self-consciousness, allowing tiny, breathy gasps and moans to slip from his lips with little abandon. It sent a sting of jealousy through Davey to know that Jack had kissed so many people before him - and more so to know that there would be so many after him. 

Envy clung to Davey like a second skin, and he selfishly let it deep into his kisses, biting lightly on the spot on Jack’s bottom lip that made him groan just a few more times than he would usually, chasing the sound down with a more insistent pressure of his lips, pressing Jack infinitely closer with the hand on his back, letting his own body relax a little more, allowing himself the luxury of being a little more vocal, more appreciative when Jack kissed him at just the right angle. 

They seemed only to encourage each other, to the point where Davey was lost, stood in the middle of that echoing, empty gallery. With every move, every sound that either of them made, the other responded in turn with renewed enthusiasm. 

It was when Davey scraped his teeth - perhaps, in retrospect, a little too roughly - indulgently and in a long, drawn-out motion, across Jack’s full lower lip, that Jack’s mouth seemed to lose all sensation, and he let out a long, shaky breath, warm and deep and longing against Davey’s mouth. Davey smiled against his lips, and went in to kiss him again, when Jack’s hands flew up to grab on to the lapels of Davey’s suit jacket. 

For one wild, terrifying moment, Davey’s mind feared it was going in a very different direction, but his body seemed to understand what his mind did not. Jack’s hands on his jacket were not to take charge, but rather, to give it over, to request what he wanted from Davey. 

Davey would later think many things about this moment. Mostly, he would marvel at how well they knew each other, and not just physically, but well enough that Davey could recognise exactly what Jack wanted, that Jack trusted that Davey would give him just that, and that the both of them had developed this push and pull of desires without so much as a word between them. He would also think, however, that this moment was the pinnacle of Jack’s certainty, that the confidence with which he asked was the moment at which he was most sure about whatever it was they were doing. 

And so, without so much as a conscious thought, Davey moved the hand on Jack’s back to his waist, and slid the hand on the back of his neck a little further up, and crowded him up against a space of wall clear of paintings, the back of his hand bumping into the wall as Jack did. He knew he had done right by Jack the moment he did it. Jack let out a low whine and let his entire body relax, prompting Davey to push them ever closer together. 

He drew his mouth away by millimetres, and Jack chased after it seemingly unthinkingly. Davey moved away again, dipping his head back in to press a kiss, searingly gentle, to the left corner of Jack’s mouth. Jack sighed, and his head tipped back until it leaned against the wall. Davey pressed his mouth to Jack’s skin again, this time a little further over, and he trailed a line of kisses up and over his cheekbone, one to his temple, and then, in wider intervals, down to the corner of his jaw. 

With the fingertips of the hand that had been behind Jack’s head, he brushed lightly along the sharp line of Jack’s jaw. Jack shivered, just a little. Davey pressed kisses along the line he had just traced with his fingers, then placed his hand beneath Jack’s chin and kissed him clean on the mouth. That made Jack smile, which in turn made Davey burn with the desire to ask what exactly it was that he was smiling about. He did not ask, however, but merely returned his mouth to a position lower down, using his hand beneath Jack’s chin to tilt his head a little to the side, exposing the line of his throat. 

He placed his kisses with an exact precision down Jack’s throat, revelling in the little gasps and noises that escaped his lips with every press of Davey’s mouth. He paused momentarily at Jack’s pulse point, too wary to still there and leave marks behind like he was so desperate to. Instead, he rested, his face tucked into the crook of Jack’s neck like it was an exact fit, his mouth hovering over his throat and revelling in the quick, unsteady beating at his pulse point, a physical reminder that this was not, as Davey feared, regardless, entirely one-sided. 

And then, when the moment seemed to drag out for just a millisecond too long, Davey drew away, and continued kissing down Jack’s throat, until he was stopped by the stiff fabric of Jack’s collar. He moved away, and went back to look at Jack once again, touching their foreheads gently together. 

He let his eyes flutter closed, and, entirely against his will, felt the sharp prickling of tears behind his eyelids. He let his hands fall to Jack’s waist, and, almost as if Jack understood exactly what was happening in his mind, Jack’s hands came to rest around Davey’s neck. 

Neither said anything, but just rested, waiting, Jack still breathing heavily, a little unevenly in a way that, had Davey not been so heady with wanting and so caught up in his own emotions, he might have realised was evidence that Jack was holding back his own tears. 

Davey was unsure how long they stood there, not quite intertwined, but more linked, as every breath, every sigh was amplified tenfold as it echoed across the empty expanse of the room. 

He was fairly certain that it was a small eternity before Jack leaned in, and pressed their mouths together, short and bittersweet. 

‘Let’s go home?’ Jack said, and his voice trailed up at the end in his uncertainty. 

‘Whatever you want,’ Davey whispered, and stepped back, away from Jack. 

Jack leant his head back against the wall once again, and looked at Davey from beneath his lashes. Davey thought, for a moment, that he was going to say something else, but then he stood up straight, and headed for the door. 

*

They walked home in silence, though home was far enough away to have justified getting a cab. 

The city was sleepless and noisy, even in its state of darkness, with sirens wailing in the distance and people stumbling along the sidewalk, laughing uproariously. 

It made Davey feel very subdued as he and Jack walked, side by side, their hands never quite brushing, their sideways glances never quite meeting. Their silence did not feel awkward or stilted - it wasn’t exactly pleasant, but it was not out of anger that they did not speak, but rather there being no need to. 

They rode the elevator up to their apartment in silence, walked into the hallway in silence. 

They stopped outside Davey’s room. They had crossed the threshold now, the line over their doorstep that changed the space between them. They stood facing each other, rather like they might do were they about to kiss again. They did not. 

Jack reached out a hand, and his fingertips just brushed against the fabric of Davey’s suit jacket, at his elbow. Davey hadn’t missed the way his eyes had been trailing over him all evening, and it gave him a small rush of satisfaction, of confidence. Jack’s hand fell back to his side. 

‘’Night, Jackie,’ Davey said, quietly, and smiled. 

Jack pressed his lips together, and frowned, just a little. ‘Goodnight, Davey,’ he said, and with that, he opened the door to his room. Davey did not stay to watch him close the door, did not want to know whether Jack looked at him 

He sat on the edge of his bed and thought until his head was spinning, until his mind was a flurry of noise that would not rest. 

When he slept that night, his dreams were haunted by a ghost of a touch, that slipped away every time he grabbed at it.

*

Davey would realise, much later on, that this had been the only complete moment that they passed together, in that strange not-quite status. Every other had been interrupted - by Davey’s phone ringing in the kitchen, by their having to head back down to a party, by Katherine knocking on the bathroom door at Spot’s. This, however, had been a full circle, a complete encounter, from the moment Davey had sat on Jack’s bed and chosen his tie, to the moment he had closed his bedroom door behind him. 

This series of moments, this tiny glimmer of something he could barely call hope, would draw that shadow of a touch to his dreams for years afterwards, would stop him from ever entirely letting go. 

It would play a part in persuading Davey to go to the exhibition, all those years later. 

It left an ache within him - painful, yes, but more than anything, it was comforting, solid, and warm. It was something of Jack that remained for so long after he was gone in physicality, some trace of him that Davey clung to despite every one of his better instincts. 

If he believed in those sorts of things, he might call it something like a string, tying them together, drawing them back in towards each other until the ended up next to one another once again, in seats E-5 and E-6.

**Author's Note:**

> i’m on tumblr @weisenbachfelded and i never bloody shut up on there so come say hi  
> happy xmas penzy! i love u so very much happy holidays to everyone else who’s also here! i love u also!


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